Who: Bastien and Regulus When: Tonight Where:The Bed & Breakfast where Regulus has been staying What: Revelations Rating: NC-17 Open/Closed: Closed. Finished in comments because of IJ's stupid post limits! WARNING for the following: BDSM, light bondage, D/s, and language. You’ve been warned. Prompt: You would take away everything.
Regulus was going more then a little stir crazy. Sitting and waiting did not suit him at all, but there was hardly anything he could do about it, all things considered. He’d been reading the journals for amusement, and had noticed that Karkaroff was back at Durmstang for the school term, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t or couldn’t end up being around the place still. He hadn’t seen much of their young host either. The young man seemed to have a particular gift for being unobtrusive, damned near invisible really, which was a shame. He was certainly more interesting to watch then the local scenery, as far as Regulus was concerned. Not to mention that the boy had figured out who he was. He needed to be watched.
Regulus stared at the walls of the small cottage he had imprisoned himself in for several more minutes and then let out a loud, sharp sigh. Fuck this. He was going for a walk. If he ran into someone he shouldn’t, then he’d deal with the consequences. He could not take one more single second inside these walls.
He drew his cloak on over his clothes impatiently and jerked the door open.
Bastien hadn’t been sleeping well, which meant most of his work was being done at night. He’d made a habit of being able to make himself nearly invisible, and it had served him well. At present, though, Ursine - Black - was the only guest in the cottages, and he’d been spending most of his time waiting for the other shoe to drop since Karkaroff had left.
So far, it hadn’t. That didn’t mean he wasn’t waiting for it, and that the waiting wasn’t getting to him. Even his mother had noticed, and she barely noticed anything most days. He’d given her the last of the potions that Melinda had sent to him, and what that meant was that sleep wasn’t finding him tonight.
He took the time to chop wood, instead, which was where he was now at the edge of the grounds behind the manor house, shirt off and axe in hand. It was mindless work, which meant it had the potential, at least, to tire him out. And he found when he was doing something like this he could lose himself in the repetition and stop thinking for a while. There was something bone-deep satisfying about watching the axe slice the sections of wood neatly in half.
Regulus had made a meandering circuit of the property, half idle thoughtfulness, half careful examination for any wards or pitfalls that may have been left behind by Karkaroff or others. Being outside and alone with his thoughts was a surprising improvement over being inside with his own thoughts. He had, he supposed, rather gotten used to the tropical weather and vast amounts of privacy and security the last few years. This was, if he thought about it too much, rather a humiliating come down in the world.
The solid, regular sound of someone chopping wood didn’t register much at first, until it got louder. It had just penetrated the thick fog of his own little pity party when he rounded a corner of a trail and found himself facing the back of the manor house- and a shirtless Bastien chopping wood in the moonlight. By hand, no magic involved. Regulus stopped, frozen in place for a moment as he took in the sight.
Bastien was, the majority of the time, very well aware of his surroundings, but he’d been at this chore for a good hour and that was long enough to lose himself in the movement and repetition of it, so it took longer than it should have to register that someone was watching him.
It had to be Black. With the axe in his hands, he’d be too slow reaching for his wand anyway, and Black hadn’t been a threat so far, so he went on with what he was doing, slicing down through the last piece of wood that he’d set and watching it fall into two neat halves to either side of the stump he used, and then he lodged the axe into the stump instead and went to pick them up and lay them on the woodpile without looking back.
“Can I do anything for you, sir?” He asked as he was doing it.
Regulus was still staring, distracted from, well, everything, watching the smooth line of Bastien’s back and arms as he methodically swung the axe again and again, his movements mesmerizing and almost hypnotic. He was so engrossed that he didn’t take the time to consider his words as he answered Bastien’s question. “You could do a great many things for me, Queensbury. It’s a damned shame you probably wouldn’t.”
He seemed to recollect himself a moment later, blinking in startling realization of what he’d said and flushing faintly, although it was likely impossible to see in the dark. “I mean, no. Not particularly. I was going stir crazy and decided to take a walk, and lost track of time.”
It wasn’t the first time Bastien had been propositioned by a guest - male or female - but it was the first time it had been done so smoothly, and quite so openly. It made him pause for a moment, surprised because he hadn’t expected it, and also because there was an initial knee-jerk reaction to the tone of Black’s voice and made him swallow hard, glad he had his back to the man. He couldn’t explain it, had never been able to explain it, but it was there.
Then Black corrected himself and went on, and Bastien could let it pass, pretend the shiver that had shot through him was the sweat cooling on his skin, and he was completely himself again when he did turn to face the other man.
“I’ll leave you to it, then, Sir.” he said, giving a polite nod and taking the few steps to where his shirt was lying.
Regulus was entirely too good at reading body language. It was a gift- and a survival instinct he’d honed. Especially once he’d gone into hiding. So he didn’t miss the reaction, or the shiver. One corner of his mouth lifted slightly and his eyes narrowed with intense interest. He decided to test the waters. “No, Bastien. I’d rather you didn’t,” he said calmly, but firmly. He paused, some mischivious imp urging him to add, “Leave it off. It’d be a shame to get it dirty.”
And just as suddenly as the urge to it before, Bastien hesitated, his shirt in his hand, and he wanted to leave it off for no reason other than the command beneath Black’s voice. The shiver, the hesitation, was, he was sure, obvious, and that made him clear his throat and grit his teeth and pull his shirt on in a rush that almost looked flustered, no matter how well-collected he usually seemed. He understood what urges were there, what a firm and commanding voice could do to him without even trying - he’d had enough experience to know what they did to him - that didn’t mean he was at all comfortable giving in to them or letting go. “I’m afraid I’m poor company, Sir,” he said, his voice still cool and polite, in spite of it.
“Tsk, tsk. Here I imagined you’d be so much better at doing what I ask,” Regulus said smoothly, managing to sound both disappointed and amused. He crossed the clearing slowly and stepped up behind Bastien, until his breath was warm against the back of Bastien’s neck. He wasn’t touching him, not a single bit, but he was there. Right there. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that, Bastien? Besides, if you abandon me, the only company I’d have is myself, and I am damn sick of me.”
“Back in the queue again, “ Bastien said quietly, and he well understood being sick of yourself. He shouldn’t have said it, though, should have a better control of his tongue than that, and he knew it was only because Black was behind him - it made him stand tense and straight, at attention to stop himself from shivering as the man breathed those firm words against the skin of his neck.
“Sir,” he said instead, glad his voice was holding at any rate, but then he found that he didn’t know what to add, what to say to extricate himself from this.
“You have spirit. I like that. You try to hide it though. You’re very good at hiding. I should know, I’ve done it so long.” Another long pause, where he just stood there behind Bastien, studying him. “Do you know, I can’t quite decide if I like it better when you call me that- or if I’d prefer to hear you use my name. My real name. It’s quite a quandry. Especially when you’re trying so very hard to keep from trembling. Fear of me, I wonder.... or something else?”
Regulus leaned in, as if to touch his lips to Bastien’s skin, but it only left his breath, warm against the pulse of Bastien’s throat. “You don’t impress me as being very afraid, though.”
“You’ve done nothing yet that shows me I need to be afraid of you,” Bastien said, and his voice was starting to slip now, too, no matter how still and tense he held himself. There was a slight loss of that polite edge, a harder sound coming out beneath it. His voice, at least, didn’t tremble, not even when the rest of him might.
“No. I haven’t,” and Black sounded pleased, as Bastien had proved his point. “So, I have to wonder then, if this trembling, this stiff attempt at keeping control of yourself, comes from some other source. Clearly you don’t feel threatened. I don’t imagine you’d have any trouble telling me to take my attentions elsewhere if I was making you uncomfortable, either. You know how to take care of yourself, don’t you, my boy?” he said silkily, his voice dropping a little at the last.
Finally then, a soft, almost inconsequential brush of his fingertips against the back of Bastien’s neck. “So what then, Bastien, has you so intent on keeping yourself under control when you’re near me?” Black knew. He knew Bastien knew he knew, at this point. He wanted the boy to say it.
“I don’t know what you mean, Sir.” It was a futile attempt, and Bastien knew it. A lie that was so transparent he was sure a Hufflepuff might have seen through it, but that was all he had at the moment.
It was true, Black hadn’t done anything to make him thing he had to fear an army of Death Eaters coming to take his land. Black was hiding away, and he could make assumptions about what it was he was hiding from, especially now that he thought he knew why Black had avoided Karkaroff. Of those things, at least, Bastien didn’t have to fear Black.
But this was a different sort of fear. Bastien might not be afraid of Black, but in the last few minutes he’d become very much afraid of himself. Black might not know what he’d promoted in Bastien - though now Bastien suspected that he might know all too well - but Bastien knew, and that side of himself was terrifying to think about. He’d given in to it before, he knew what giving up control could do to him. He couldn’t again.
And it was ridiculous to think that he would. Hadn’t even connected a thought about that to Black before now, with Black breathing against his neck and so obviously aware of what he was doing. It was the voice, Bastien decided, that firm and powerful hint under his voice. But Bastien could steel himself against that.
“Now Bastien, to lie like that, with me right here, close enough to smell it,” he said, scorn and disappointment in his voice. “Bad boy,” he chastened him and circled slowly around until he was facing Bastien, two fingers slipping under his chin so he had to look up at Regulus’ face. “Now lie to my face, dear one, and see what sort of punishments I can devise. Or tell me the truth this time, and see what sort of rewards I can think up.”
Bastien shivered then, just once, and not able to keep himself from it when Black touched him and forced him to meet his eyes.
There was a place in London he’d gone last year. He’d heard about it through rumours and gossip and he’d gone thinking that he’d be disgusted and leave. And this had been the moment when he’d broken, and a moment later he’d been on his knees licking the boots of the woman who’d broken him.
But he knew how that had left him, too, and how dangerous it was. And Black was infinitely more dangerous than that muggle had been. Black was here in his real space, his real life, and Black was hiding from things that had nearly destroyed everything his family had once before. So no matter what that dark little urge in his spine was telling him he could do here, he couldn’t break.
And he also couldn’t quite pull himself away from Black’s hand. Which caught him in a position he found himself in very, very rarely of not knowing at all what to do, or say, and instead he stared at Black, met his eyes completely torn.
Regulus watched the conflicting emotions on Bastien’s face, watched him debate with himself, watched how hard he fought himself and his smile gentled, his thumb brushing over Bastien’s bottom lip gently. “Poor lamb. You’re working so hard to keep everything up, taking on all the burden for yourself. Don’t you deserve, every once in a while, to let it go? To give over, and let someone else take care of you for a few hours?” He tilted his head to the side, considering. “I promise you, Queensbury, that no harm will come to you, or yours, from me. That, should you need it, you have my protection from the sort I formerly associated with. All I ask from you, is a bit of truth. Bald, simple, honest truth. Give me what I want, pet.”
It sounded good. Anything that promised to take Bastien away from himself, even for a few hours, always sounded good, and it would be easy to take Black at his word. Easy enough that for a second he closed his eyes, and his lips parted under Black’s thumb, but even as he felt himself start to sway into it he forced himself to stop. Eyes opened again and they were darker, this time.
“The truth then, Sir, is that I don’t have the luxury of giving over to anything. Those that you formerly associated with have seen to that. And this...” he steeled himself, finally pulling back from Regulus fingers on his chin and taking one step back from him, “is not included on your bill. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
That was, quite honestly, not the reaction he’d expected. He’d offered his protection sincerely and it wasn’t something he did lightly. It certainly wasn’t something he’d extended to anyone but his family- ever. It had been, frankly, the first real attempt at reaching out to someone else that Regulus had made in years and it had been thrown back in his face- and insulted on top of that. There was a naked loneliness, and sharp regret on his face, before his face smoothed over into a polite mask. Well, the best he could do at one, anyways. There were cracks in it, however, bitter anger and hurt peeking through as he pulled his hand away, folding it, and somehow, himself, in the voluminous folds of his cloak. “My apologies, Mr. Queensbury. I shan’t bother you with my attentions again.” He wouldn’t stay much longer either, he decided suddenly. It was time to move on.
That reaction should have been what Bastien wanted, but somehow the open hurt that had flashed there in Black’s face was so raw that he had no trouble believing it's honestly and it made him swallow hard again, everything in him already reacting to Black’s moods even from that few brief moments of temptation. More than that... it was too much to see that edge if power in Black crack, even at the edges, and that spoke to him more even than the lingering feeling of Black’s breath on his throat. "Sir..." he started, and his voice wasn't at all the proper cold tone it usually carried. "I -" and there was something torn in his voice and still struggling with what it wanted to do, but he still wasn't sure what to say.
Regulus arched a brow, all imperious distance now, trying to retreat behind that, to hide away the moment of honest vulnerability he’d offered. “There will be no recriminations, Mr. Queensbury, if that’s what you’re worried about.” It had to be, of course. You didn’t throw something back in someone’s face like that and not assume the worst of them. He’d thought, for a moment, he’d found someone of a like mind- someone he could be real with. Someone who, for one wild, stupid moment, he’d thought he could be himself with and damned if it didn’t hurt much more badly then he’d anticipated, to realize how wrong he’d been. He blinked rapidly for a moment and then turned suddenly, not wanting to be seen any more vulnerable then he already had.
Bastien watched as Black turned away and found himself fidgeting, which he never did, and almost stepping forward to stop him. Instead he stared at his back and said, “You don’t understand,” before he’d meant to, the words far more pained, far less bitter, than he’d intended them.
Regulus stopped, and for a long moment, he was clearly torn between continuing, or turning back around. Instead, he chose neither, simply standing there, stiff and tense, an almost exact turn around from the situation a few moments before. “What precisely, do I not understand, Mr. Queensbury? I think you made yourself very clear.”
The reversal wasn’t lost on Bastien, and he almost smirked at it if it weren’t so damned confusing. He should want Black offended. Want Black leaving. It would make things so much easier - so much less to worry about. “I have to be so careful,” he heard himself saying, and he hated the touch of pained desperation that he imagined in his voice, whether it was there or not.
Regulus turned then, halfway at least, looking over his shoulder, those grey eyes narrowed as he studied Bastien. “I know. Believe me,” he said wryly. “I know. That was why I thought....” he stopped, frowning sharply, cutting himself off. It was why he’d thought Bastien would understand. Why he thought he could...help. “I never thought you were part of the provided services,” he added stiffly, still hurt over the accusation.
Bastien averted his eyes, then, he could meet them when Regulus looked back at him but those final words made him ashamed - partly because he’d known when he said them that that hadn’t been what Black had meant to imply, and partly because they’d been said to cut, and he hadn’t expected them to work. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he said, clearing his throat again, hands going behind his own back and clasping there. “I apologize.”
Regulus stood there, for a moment, surprised by the apology, but the fact Bastien wouldn’t look at him made him wary still. “Apology accepted,” he said quietly, but he wasn’t sure why Bastien was saying he was sorry when he’d worked so hard to make sure and push Regulus away in the first place. “I’m... sorry, if I made you uncomfortable. I... misread you,” he said finally, regret tinging his voice with something like sadness. He really had thought he’d seen something in Bastien, something that had responded to him, but he’d evidently been mistaken.
“I think we both know that you didn’t,” Bastien said, not able to see the momentary regret in Black’s eyes and misreading it in his voice. He looked up at his own admission, though, meeting Black’s eyes again, not saying anything further.
Regulus blinked for a moment, startled by the admission, and finally turning all the way back around. He was quiet for a long moment, trying to figure this out. He had thought Bastien was interested, but then he’d so brutally turned it back in Regulus face, that he wasn’t sure if he could trust his instincts any longer. Finally then, he just asked, quietly. “How can I make it better?”
Bastien didn’t know the answer to that. He was, when it came to it and he considered everything that was piled onto his shoulders, very sure that it was unlikely that anyone was going to be able to make anything better. Which, he supposed, was a good enough answer.
“You can’t,” he said, and this time it wasn’t cruel at all, just very matter-of-fact. He barely knew Black, but that didn’t make much of a difference. The things that were threatening here, those were his responsibilities. Black was promising. Commanding. Firm. He could probably let himself disappear in that for an hour or so. But when it was over, he’d be left with this. He couldn’t give up control that way.
Regulus arched a brow at that. “Bullshit,” he said bluntly. “Utter bollocks. I can, you just don’t want to let yourself allow it,” he said with that same penetrating gaze. “I could, I suppose order you to give in, but I don’t think that’s what you need. I think you need to give in first. I think you need to lay down all the weight on your shoulders for an hour or two. Maybe longer. I think you need to trust that I won’t let the world fall down around you while you do.” He paused, hesitating again, that same lonely vulnerability flashing in his expression before he let out a slow sigh. “I think I need to let you make that last choice, before I make the rest of them for you.”
Bastien should have answered right away. Told him there was no chance it would happen. It was appealing, though, to have choices taken away from him, even for a few hours. To have someone else making decisions. It took too much trust, though, and that was the sticking point. He didn’t trust Black that much. Enough to be sure that he wouldn’t be left useless and broken and pulling himself together afterward, the way he had before. Too many things depended on him. There were too many things on his shoulders that he couldn’t lay down, even for an hour.
He didn’t trust anyone that much anymore.
“I’m sorry,” he said, quieter this time and once more not quite meeting Black’s eyes. “It’s not a choice I can make.”
Regulus closed his eyes for a long moment, as the feeling of loss and hurt swept through him, just letting it come this time. It was, at least, more expected. He couldn’t blame Bastien, not really. Still... “The offer stands then. Until you think you can, Bastien,” he offered softly.
Bastien stared at Black for a moment longer, and then he nodded and it was almost visible - the proper host facade sliding back into him. He stood a little straighter and nodded once more, but this time added a, “Thank you, Sir. Have a good evening.” And it was his cool, polite, professional voice that answered. It was easier that way, more comfortable, less himself.
Regulus felt the loss of it, frowning faintly, before he turned and headed back towards his cottage for another long, silent night of nothing but his own company. He was looking forward to it even less then usual now.
Bastien turned after Regulus did and headed back toward the manor house. He could put all of this behind him.
Life, it seemed, had other thoughts. The next two hours were spent being reminded in detail of his responsibilities - because as he’d come in, he realized that whatever had been left of the potions hadn’t been enough to help his mother sleep. They had been enough to help her remember herself, though, and in that drugged space between sleeping and awake she was remembering her husband’s death. Over, and over, and by the time Bastien had finally managed to calm her and see that she was asleep it was all he could do to shower and then he dragged to his room emotionally wrought. There was nothing he could do. Nothing he could say.
And when he looked out his window, he saw that the lights in the Orchid cottage were still flickering.